Damaged Goods

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Damaged Goods
Cover
Gang of Four
publication October 13, 1978
length 03:34 min
Genre (s) Post-punk , independent
Author (s) Gang of Four
Producer (s) Bob Last, FAST Product
Label NEARLY
album Gang of Four (EP)

Damaged Goods is a song by the English post-punk band, Gang of Four . The debut single appeared on an EP on October 13, 1978 on the independent record label Fast Product . The band's EP received a lot of approval, which led the band to sign with the major label EMI . The song, Damaged Goods, was released in 1979 for her debut album, Entertainment! newly recorded.

Music and lyrics

The song, Damaged Goods, begins with a syncopated bass and guitar over several bars , in which the drums later kick in. Jon King's vocals, setting the mood of a lonely, wistful lament as a singer, are taken from spoken lyrics by the band's guitarist, Andy Gill . The Allmusic critic Tom Maginnis said that this song was their most influential one, while the " Atypical lightness and bounce Dave Allen's excellent bass line remarked" that is countered with a constant chopping rhythm guitar by Andy Gill. He described the end result as " almost danceable, only the indignant singing tirade of singer Jon King disturbs something ". The New Musical Express wrote, "This song has a guitar riff that could pierce through a particularly strong iron wall; the coldest funk this side of Prince & The Revolution ."

Lyrically, the song is about the sexual-political, which in its ambiguity also forms the core of the message. In a 2009 interview with Clash magazine, singer and lyricist Jon King stated that he was inspired by a tagline in a Morrison supermarket in Leeds and incorporated that into the text - as a good start to a doomed relationship . Allmusic's Tom Maginnis wrote that the text "sums up the collective attitude of the post-punk era by saying goodbye to the more optimistic music of the 60s and self-indulgent 70s with this sing-sang ."

Artwork

Cover back
Cover
Gang of Four

The shell of the EP was designed in the style of situationism and deconstructivism by producer Bob Last. The band name is printed on the front in bold, black, sans serif capital letters on a deep pink background. The title information Damaged Goods, Love Like Anthrax and Armalite Rifle are arranged around the band name. On the back of the case you can see a newspaper tear of a female torero in a bullfight as well as an excerpt from the band's letter to producer Bob Last, in which the band explains how they envision the case for the EP. In this letter, they ask Last to include a verbatim transcription of the band's conversation with a stripper and a comedian in the newspaper clipping . Last ignored the band's demands and designed an envelope that only contained the newspaper clippings and an excerpt from the band's letter to him.

Reviews

After its release in 1978, the track Damaged Goods became an independent hit. The merging of punk rock and funk inspired future bands like Fugazi and Rage Against the Machine . Allmusic's Tom Maginnis called the song " a masterful mix of sex, politics and driving, melodic, post-punk fear ." Regarding the musical influence on other bands, he wrote that Damaged Goods would present itself as the musical focal point of an era which, together with contemporaries like The Fall , the Au Pairs and The Clash , would forge a new, radical, political agenda in rock & roll. Simon Reynolds , author of the book Rip It Up and Start Again - Postpunk 1978-1984 , wrote: " The band has come up with a whole new way to break through the delicate danger zone known as 'Politics-in-Rock' . " And then went on to write: " Threatened - but accessible, Gang of Four avoided both the Tom Robinson -like sermon protest in music and the prohibitive didactics of the avant-garde - like the band Henry Cow ; radical form, radical content, yet one can dance well to it . " Music journalist Paul Lester considered Damaged Goods the first "post-punk single ".

The New Musical Express named Damaged Goods as number 46 on the list of the " 100 Best Tracks of the Seventies ".

The working title of Massive Attack 's third album Mezzanine was Damaged Goods . Massive Attack even recorded a cover version of it, but it hasn't been released yet.

Title list of the EP

All titles are written by Gang of Four .

No. title length
1. "Damaged Goods" 3:34
2. "Armalite Rifle" 3:18
3. "Love Like Anthrax" 3:03
Album length: 9:55

occupation

technology

Cover versions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rebecca Schiller: 100 Best Songs of the 1970s. New Musical Express, June 4, 2018, accessed in 2020 .